Natalie and Doug
A friend from Roseland sent me a really great sight. If you are still out there send me your email address and I will foreward it
Mine is
Doug,
Reference the Verdi Theater. Check out this sight. My uncle was big in the Moose Club there. They bought it from the owners of the Verdi. View link
John
I always try to go back to Chicago area in the spring. Can’t take the cold weather anymore. Marriott Corp transferred me back there in 1993-94 and I lived in Lemont. Like to froze to death! I worked at Rush Presyterian Hospital as Environmental Services manager. Walked 8 to 10 hours a shift (12 hour shifts). Can’t walk 100 yards now without resting due to Myasenthia Gravis. Old age sucks!
Natalie,
Sorry to hear you are homesick in California. But any normal person would want to be anyplace other than California. I spent years there in the Navy and later working for Marriott as a contract manager. I finally told them I was quitting unless they transferred me to Las Vegas and had actually found a new job. They transferred me and, other than a couple trips to see friends, I have not gone back!
John
Natalie,
Check out this sight. Great photo album of Roseland shots View link
You have to register to leave comments but it’s free. I tried to identify what I knew but some of the buildings, although familiar, I couldn’t remember
John
BY the way Derrick, you might be confusing the Rose Bowl on 115th and Michigan with a theater. Roseland Camera was on the corner of 115th and Michigan and Pannoza’s Deli was next to the Rose Bowl. Great Itlaian Beef sandwiches. I used to go to Rose Bowl every Saturday night with a friend and bowl 12 games each, 30 cents a game!
Even remember when they had pin spotters before they put in the automatic’s.
Derrick,
Most people who grew up in Roseland have fond memories. It was definetly a middle class friendly community where everyone in the neighborhood knew each other. I miss it!
Natalie
Doty Ave from 103rd to 123rd going by Lake Calumet was 2 lanes, 1 north and 1 south. YOu could walk across it and go fishing.
I found that Gately’s sight on-line a couple years ago. The grandchildren of Gately sre running it. They opened a store in Tinley Park after the one on Michigan Ave closed but it went under.
I’ve seen that golf course. IT’s built over the garbage dump. That’s why there are no trees. They would break the crust and allow methane gas to escape. There are vents all around it to relieve pressure. THat’s where Chicago State Golf teams play. I learned to drive in the parking lot of dump on 103rd East of Doty.
Yep, he had a set of lungs on him. Remember the handicapped guy who sold peanuts and popcorn in window next to the Parkway Theater on 110th and Michigan? There was a great soda fountain next door too. Used to wet ends of straw paper and stick them on ceiling hehehe
I went to that catholic church on 118th and Indiana a couple times when I was thinking about swirching to Catholic (My father was the original Archie Bunker and hated everyone, Catholics, Pollacks, Blacks, Mexicans, etc. I think he might have hated himself too). Never converted though because my mother was a strict Luteran (German background). There used to be a corner tavern in almost every neighborhood where people got together without shooting or knifing one another and a community food store, usually a converted home where the owner lived in the back. Supermarkets drove them all out of business much like WalMart is doing today. I used to practically live in that YMCA on 11th Street. Swimming, gyn, watching basketball, lifting weights and playing pingpong. The Walgreen’s on 11th and Michigan served the best strawberry sundaes I have ever had and Gino’s pizza was the first pizza place I can remember opening right next to it on 111th. Pizza was $1.50 for a large. White Castles were 12 cents and every week in the Calumet Express there was usually a coupon for 5 cent White Castles on certain days.
I served 22 years in the Navy and during my travels (I have been in all 50 states and on every continent) I found that when hispanics start moving into a previous black area the area immediately shows improvement and civic pride. I was in LA during the last riots in early 1990’s managing Dodger Stadium. WE had 50,000 people in the stadium and suddenly you could see fires popping up all over. WE were worried we might have a riot right in the ballpark so they turned off all the TV sets around the concourses. I had to drive home through the areas and every time a car approached me I would either speed up or slow down just in case someone was out looking for “whitey” to shoot.
MY favorite movie theater was the Roseland when I was a child. I used to get 25 cents. Every Saturday morning they had 10 cartoons, a serial (like rocket man) and a cowboy movie or science fiction. I would take the street car (red colored then) pay 9 cents, leaving me 11 cents for popcorn. IF I walked I could use the nickle for a soft drink from a machine. I went to Van Vlissingen Elementary School on 110th and Wentworth until 1950 and then to West Pullman. I attended Fenger High School until 1956 in my senior year when I joined the Navy. Finshed my GED and then went to Chaminade College in Honolulu for 5 years of night classes to get my Business Degree.
I was at Chicago State a couple years ago when a close friend took his granddaughter there to register. She had a full golfing scholarship and he had never been to Chicago so was afraid to go to certain areas. I was surprised how safe the school area appeared and how caring the administration was. Unfortunately the golfing director didn’t know what he was doing and 6 months later all the female scholarships were eliminated.
Doty Avenue used to be a two lane road where I used to go fishing for bullheads in Lake Calumet. Then they put in the garbage dump and the lake started to disappear. Sherwin Williams on 115th and Cottage used to stink out all of Roseland when the wind was from the lake. There was a great soda fountain near the IC tracks at 115th and Cottage Grove. I attended JUnior Achievement in one of the Pullman Buildings at 111th and Cottage Grove. My father used to take me down by the Hotel Florence to watch the locomotives going by.
Lot of memories……..
MY family and I used to go to that Chinese restaurant about once a week in the 40’s and 50’s. Remember it well.
It actually makes me happy to hear things might be im proving in Roseland. The last time I drove through they had burned down the Normal Theater and the White Castle on 110th and State. I grew up on 110th Place between Michigan and State. Moved to 116th and Wallace about 1950. When I joined the Navy in 1956 it was a great place to live. No one ever locked their doors and all the peole in the neighborhood knew each other. When I was tarnsferred to Great Lakes in 1963 I rented a house across from the post office on 110th and State. Still a Great Area. But, when I went back in the late 70’s to visit it was like a combat zone. Buildings burnt and boarded up, punks on almost every corner along 119th Street and Michigan Avenue looked like a flea market in Istanbul. I spent a lot of time at Palmer Park and Pullman Tech area when I was a kid (Mendell SChool bought PUllman Tech). They still had bushes all the way around Palmer Park then. Had to take them out in the 70’s because of all the assaults. Driving around Roseland in the 80’s meant don’t get caught at a stop light because if you did there was a good chance someone was going to walk up to your car and try something. My father had to move out of his house on 116th and Wallace because the local punks started harrasing him and threw rocks through his front window. He was the only white left there. I saw the deterioration and crime, I don’t have to make it up. It was terrible!
While you were home did you drive down Michigan Avenue? I dare you to walk the streets alone at night! It is one of the highest crime areas in the city. Of course there are nice people still living there but when they are talking about closing a major high school because of gang problems (Fenger) and a white person can not walk the streets in safety, something needs changing.
The camera shop was Roseland Camera. I bought my first slide projector and screen there. Still have them both. Used to bowl every Saturday night at the RoseBowl….one whole sheet every week with a close friend of mine. I worked part-time at Joe and Nick’s Meat Market at 110th and Michigan and used to blow almost my whole pay there after work on Saturday night. When I first went there they had guys spotting pins but changed to automatics. Remember several incidents of guys getting hit with pins and coming out with blood streaming down there faces. I delivered the Southend Reporter for one summer. THeir office was just down the hill on 115th and Michigan.
I spent a few days at the Pump myself (still have a scar on my rear-end from getting pushed against one of those radiators along the pool
(today I would own the place the way everyone sues).
I learned to swim at Palmer Park. Just dove across corners and increased angle a little more each week or so. Eventually I could swim the length. Never did understand why those indoor pools made males swim naked.
Doug,
Yes, the YMCA is still there. Right next to where the White Castle used to be. I knew all kinds of ways to sneak into the “Y”. Spent a couple nights sleeping in the gym after my father locked me out of the house for not being home by 9pm.I swam there a few times but I actually learned at Palmer Park pool. I used the weight room when I was a teenager also.
John
Doug
Can’t remember for sure if the Verdi was at bottom on hill on 114th st or 115th place. I remmeber taking newspapers to the junk yard on 115th and Michigan during the war so I could go to the movies. Used to have a red wagon and they would be stackd higher than I was tall. Had to pick them up many many times between 110th Place and 115th hehehe
Right on the gang fight. They had a full scale riot between the two schools. Had to shut them down for a few days so things would quiet down. Ice skated at SCanlan a lot during the winter WE’d walk there from 116th and Wallace.
John
Doug
Can’t remember for sure if the Verdi was at bottom on hill on 114th st or 115th place. I remmeber taking newspapers to the junk yard on 11th and Michigan during the war so I could go to the movies. Used to have a red wagon and they would be stackd higher than I was tall. Had to pick them up many many times between 110th Place and 115th hehehe
Right on the gang fight. They had a full scale riot between the two schools. Had to shut them down for a few days so things would quiet down. Ice skated at SCanlan a lot during the winter WE’d walk there from 116th and Wallace.
John
Doug
Can’t remember for sure if the Verdi was at bottom on hill on 114th st or 115th place. I remmeber taking newspapers to the junk yard on 11th and Michigan during the ar so I could go to the movies. Used to have a red wagon and they would be stackd higher than I was tall. Had to pick them up many many times between 110th Place and 115th hehehe
Right on the gamn fight. They had a full scale riot between the two schools. Had to shut them down for a few days so things would quiet down. Ice skated at SCanlan a lot during the winter WE’d walk there from 116th and Wallace.
John
gaxelson
I attended People’s Lutheran Church on corner or 110th and State Street. Spent a lot of time at that library myself. When gate was closed to Pullman Tech that’s where we used to climb over the fence to get to the lagoon. Fished for crawfish with a safety pin and bread. Painted them white and threw them back. used to catch a lot of them over and over again! We also used to climb the fence at the pool in Palmer Park at about 4am (after delivering newspapers) and swim. One time we dove in and they were refilling the pool. Scared the hell out of me seeing the walls of pool going by! Luckily there was about 6 feet in deep end so didn’t get hurt. Also remember ice skating on the lagoon in Pullman tech and well as across from the field house in Palme Park. They also used to flood the schoolyard at Scanlan and we could skate there.
John Stitnizky
Doug
The White Castle is gone. Burnt down in he 80’s. There is actually nothing decent left on Michigan Avenue anymore. Even Van Vlissingen school is gone. Palmer Park is a drug hangout and the old Pullman Tech looks like it is ready to fall down.
John Stitnizky
Doug
I used to live in People’s Store. Loved watching that donut machine in the basement and used to terrorize Santa Claus at Christmas time. I frequented the State, Parkway and Roseland theaters mostly. Went to Ridge once on 120th Street near Union and to the Normal on corner of 119th Stret and Normal a few times.
That calendar sure brought some memories especially the one showing corner of 111th and Michigan. Wow!!!
John Stitnizky
Natalie and Doug
A friend from Roseland sent me a really great sight. If you are still out there send me your email address and I will foreward it
Mine is
John
Doug,
Reference the Verdi Theater. Check out this sight. My uncle was big in the Moose Club there. They bought it from the owners of the Verdi.
View link
John
I always try to go back to Chicago area in the spring. Can’t take the cold weather anymore. Marriott Corp transferred me back there in 1993-94 and I lived in Lemont. Like to froze to death! I worked at Rush Presyterian Hospital as Environmental Services manager. Walked 8 to 10 hours a shift (12 hour shifts). Can’t walk 100 yards now without resting due to Myasenthia Gravis. Old age sucks!
Natalie,
Sorry to hear you are homesick in California. But any normal person would want to be anyplace other than California. I spent years there in the Navy and later working for Marriott as a contract manager. I finally told them I was quitting unless they transferred me to Las Vegas and had actually found a new job. They transferred me and, other than a couple trips to see friends, I have not gone back!
John
Natalie,
Check out this sight. Great photo album of Roseland shots
View link
You have to register to leave comments but it’s free. I tried to identify what I knew but some of the buildings, although familiar, I couldn’t remember
John
BY the way Derrick, you might be confusing the Rose Bowl on 115th and Michigan with a theater. Roseland Camera was on the corner of 115th and Michigan and Pannoza’s Deli was next to the Rose Bowl. Great Itlaian Beef sandwiches. I used to go to Rose Bowl every Saturday night with a friend and bowl 12 games each, 30 cents a game!
Even remember when they had pin spotters before they put in the automatic’s.
Derrick,
Most people who grew up in Roseland have fond memories. It was definetly a middle class friendly community where everyone in the neighborhood knew each other. I miss it!
Doug
Not that I recall. I only went there a couple times. Most of my swimming was at Palmer Park
John
Natalie
Doty Ave from 103rd to 123rd going by Lake Calumet was 2 lanes, 1 north and 1 south. YOu could walk across it and go fishing.
I found that Gately’s sight on-line a couple years ago. The grandchildren of Gately sre running it. They opened a store in Tinley Park after the one on Michigan Ave closed but it went under.
I’ve seen that golf course. IT’s built over the garbage dump. That’s why there are no trees. They would break the crust and allow methane gas to escape. There are vents all around it to relieve pressure. THat’s where Chicago State Golf teams play. I learned to drive in the parking lot of dump on 103rd East of Doty.
Yep, he had a set of lungs on him. Remember the handicapped guy who sold peanuts and popcorn in window next to the Parkway Theater on 110th and Michigan? There was a great soda fountain next door too. Used to wet ends of straw paper and stick them on ceiling hehehe
Ridge was on 120th Street near Union. Last time I went there the Girl in the Red Shoes was playing and a rat ran over my foot while I was watching
I went to that catholic church on 118th and Indiana a couple times when I was thinking about swirching to Catholic (My father was the original Archie Bunker and hated everyone, Catholics, Pollacks, Blacks, Mexicans, etc. I think he might have hated himself too). Never converted though because my mother was a strict Luteran (German background). There used to be a corner tavern in almost every neighborhood where people got together without shooting or knifing one another and a community food store, usually a converted home where the owner lived in the back. Supermarkets drove them all out of business much like WalMart is doing today. I used to practically live in that YMCA on 11th Street. Swimming, gyn, watching basketball, lifting weights and playing pingpong. The Walgreen’s on 11th and Michigan served the best strawberry sundaes I have ever had and Gino’s pizza was the first pizza place I can remember opening right next to it on 111th. Pizza was $1.50 for a large. White Castles were 12 cents and every week in the Calumet Express there was usually a coupon for 5 cent White Castles on certain days.
I served 22 years in the Navy and during my travels (I have been in all 50 states and on every continent) I found that when hispanics start moving into a previous black area the area immediately shows improvement and civic pride. I was in LA during the last riots in early 1990’s managing Dodger Stadium. WE had 50,000 people in the stadium and suddenly you could see fires popping up all over. WE were worried we might have a riot right in the ballpark so they turned off all the TV sets around the concourses. I had to drive home through the areas and every time a car approached me I would either speed up or slow down just in case someone was out looking for “whitey” to shoot.
MY favorite movie theater was the Roseland when I was a child. I used to get 25 cents. Every Saturday morning they had 10 cartoons, a serial (like rocket man) and a cowboy movie or science fiction. I would take the street car (red colored then) pay 9 cents, leaving me 11 cents for popcorn. IF I walked I could use the nickle for a soft drink from a machine. I went to Van Vlissingen Elementary School on 110th and Wentworth until 1950 and then to West Pullman. I attended Fenger High School until 1956 in my senior year when I joined the Navy. Finshed my GED and then went to Chaminade College in Honolulu for 5 years of night classes to get my Business Degree.
I was at Chicago State a couple years ago when a close friend took his granddaughter there to register. She had a full golfing scholarship and he had never been to Chicago so was afraid to go to certain areas. I was surprised how safe the school area appeared and how caring the administration was. Unfortunately the golfing director didn’t know what he was doing and 6 months later all the female scholarships were eliminated.
Doty Avenue used to be a two lane road where I used to go fishing for bullheads in Lake Calumet. Then they put in the garbage dump and the lake started to disappear. Sherwin Williams on 115th and Cottage used to stink out all of Roseland when the wind was from the lake. There was a great soda fountain near the IC tracks at 115th and Cottage Grove. I attended JUnior Achievement in one of the Pullman Buildings at 111th and Cottage Grove. My father used to take me down by the Hotel Florence to watch the locomotives going by.
Lot of memories……..
MY family and I used to go to that Chinese restaurant about once a week in the 40’s and 50’s. Remember it well.
It actually makes me happy to hear things might be im proving in Roseland. The last time I drove through they had burned down the Normal Theater and the White Castle on 110th and State. I grew up on 110th Place between Michigan and State. Moved to 116th and Wallace about 1950. When I joined the Navy in 1956 it was a great place to live. No one ever locked their doors and all the peole in the neighborhood knew each other. When I was tarnsferred to Great Lakes in 1963 I rented a house across from the post office on 110th and State. Still a Great Area. But, when I went back in the late 70’s to visit it was like a combat zone. Buildings burnt and boarded up, punks on almost every corner along 119th Street and Michigan Avenue looked like a flea market in Istanbul. I spent a lot of time at Palmer Park and Pullman Tech area when I was a kid (Mendell SChool bought PUllman Tech). They still had bushes all the way around Palmer Park then. Had to take them out in the 70’s because of all the assaults. Driving around Roseland in the 80’s meant don’t get caught at a stop light because if you did there was a good chance someone was going to walk up to your car and try something. My father had to move out of his house on 116th and Wallace because the local punks started harrasing him and threw rocks through his front window. He was the only white left there. I saw the deterioration and crime, I don’t have to make it up. It was terrible!
While you were home did you drive down Michigan Avenue? I dare you to walk the streets alone at night! It is one of the highest crime areas in the city. Of course there are nice people still living there but when they are talking about closing a major high school because of gang problems (Fenger) and a white person can not walk the streets in safety, something needs changing.
There was no Roseland Theater picture shown on Mar 16 posting sight.
I heard it was being used as a strip mall
The camera shop was Roseland Camera. I bought my first slide projector and screen there. Still have them both. Used to bowl every Saturday night at the RoseBowl….one whole sheet every week with a close friend of mine. I worked part-time at Joe and Nick’s Meat Market at 110th and Michigan and used to blow almost my whole pay there after work on Saturday night. When I first went there they had guys spotting pins but changed to automatics. Remember several incidents of guys getting hit with pins and coming out with blood streaming down there faces. I delivered the Southend Reporter for one summer. THeir office was just down the hill on 115th and Michigan.
I spent a few days at the Pump myself (still have a scar on my rear-end from getting pushed against one of those radiators along the pool
(today I would own the place the way everyone sues).
I learned to swim at Palmer Park. Just dove across corners and increased angle a little more each week or so. Eventually I could swim the length. Never did understand why those indoor pools made males swim naked.
Doug,
Yes, the YMCA is still there. Right next to where the White Castle used to be. I knew all kinds of ways to sneak into the “Y”. Spent a couple nights sleeping in the gym after my father locked me out of the house for not being home by 9pm.I swam there a few times but I actually learned at Palmer Park pool. I used the weight room when I was a teenager also.
John
Doug
Can’t remember for sure if the Verdi was at bottom on hill on 114th st or 115th place. I remmeber taking newspapers to the junk yard on 115th and Michigan during the war so I could go to the movies. Used to have a red wagon and they would be stackd higher than I was tall. Had to pick them up many many times between 110th Place and 115th hehehe
Right on the gang fight. They had a full scale riot between the two schools. Had to shut them down for a few days so things would quiet down. Ice skated at SCanlan a lot during the winter WE’d walk there from 116th and Wallace.
John
Doug
Can’t remember for sure if the Verdi was at bottom on hill on 114th st or 115th place. I remmeber taking newspapers to the junk yard on 11th and Michigan during the war so I could go to the movies. Used to have a red wagon and they would be stackd higher than I was tall. Had to pick them up many many times between 110th Place and 115th hehehe
Right on the gang fight. They had a full scale riot between the two schools. Had to shut them down for a few days so things would quiet down. Ice skated at SCanlan a lot during the winter WE’d walk there from 116th and Wallace.
John
Doug
Can’t remember for sure if the Verdi was at bottom on hill on 114th st or 115th place. I remmeber taking newspapers to the junk yard on 11th and Michigan during the ar so I could go to the movies. Used to have a red wagon and they would be stackd higher than I was tall. Had to pick them up many many times between 110th Place and 115th hehehe
Right on the gamn fight. They had a full scale riot between the two schools. Had to shut them down for a few days so things would quiet down. Ice skated at SCanlan a lot during the winter WE’d walk there from 116th and Wallace.
John
gaxelson
I attended People’s Lutheran Church on corner or 110th and State Street. Spent a lot of time at that library myself. When gate was closed to Pullman Tech that’s where we used to climb over the fence to get to the lagoon. Fished for crawfish with a safety pin and bread. Painted them white and threw them back. used to catch a lot of them over and over again! We also used to climb the fence at the pool in Palmer Park at about 4am (after delivering newspapers) and swim. One time we dove in and they were refilling the pool. Scared the hell out of me seeing the walls of pool going by! Luckily there was about 6 feet in deep end so didn’t get hurt. Also remember ice skating on the lagoon in Pullman tech and well as across from the field house in Palme Park. They also used to flood the schoolyard at Scanlan and we could skate there.
John Stitnizky
Doug
The White Castle is gone. Burnt down in he 80’s. There is actually nothing decent left on Michigan Avenue anymore. Even Van Vlissingen school is gone. Palmer Park is a drug hangout and the old Pullman Tech looks like it is ready to fall down.
John Stitnizky
Doug
I used to live in People’s Store. Loved watching that donut machine in the basement and used to terrorize Santa Claus at Christmas time. I frequented the State, Parkway and Roseland theaters mostly. Went to Ridge once on 120th Street near Union and to the Normal on corner of 119th Stret and Normal a few times.